Renaissance Period PDF

**[Renaissance Period ]{.smallcaps}** Was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic "rebirth" following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, lit...

**[Renaissance Period ]{.smallcaps}** Was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic "rebirth" following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art. Some of the greatest thinkers, authors, statesmen, scientists and artists in human history thrived during this era, while global exploration opened up new lands and cultures to European commerce. The Renaissance is credited with bridging the gap between the Middle Ages and modern-day civilization. The time period of creativity and change in Europe and during the 1300s to the 1600s in which there were changes in many areas such as political, social, economical, and cultural. The most important change was that of the people and how they saw themselves and their world. Many people showed interest in classical learning, especially the culture of the ancient Romans. They set out to change their own age. The Renaissance, as they felt, was a time of rebirth after the disorder and disasters of the medieval world. Began in Italy in the mid 1300s and spread north throughout the rest of Europe. Florence, Italy was the birthplace of the Renaissance for many reasons. First of all, since Italy was the center of ancient Roman history, it was natural for the Renaissance to start there. Some things such as architectural remains, antique statues, coins inscriptions reminded Italians of the glory of the Roman Empire. Florence was very much like the ancient Athens because it produced great number of talented poets, artists, architects, scholars and scientists in a short period of time. **RENAISSANCE** The French for \"rebirth,\" was characterized by a revival of classical art, literature, philosophy, architecture, and an emphasis on humanism. This cultural flourish overlapped the Age of Discovery and advancements in science, thus making science a legitimate source of knowledge. The Middle Ages and Renaissance (c.400-c.1550) are of crucial importance in European history. They witnessed the replacement of the Roman Empire by the so-called \'Barbarian kingdoms\', the conversion of northern and eastern Europe to Christianity, the origin and development of nation states and governmental bureaucracies, and the eventual collapse of the religious unity of Christendom with the Reformation. Was a period in European history, from roughly the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a cultural movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe, marking the beginning of the Early Modern Age. One of the most significant ideas to emerge from the Renaissance is the value of education, particularly in the Humanities. The catalyst for the classical revival was the belief that one could realize his or her full humanity only through classical education. This rebirth reasserted the superiority of ancient Greco-Roman creative and intellectual contributions. From the early 15th to the early 17th century, Europeans embarked on maritime explorations around the world in order to satisfy their desire for foreign goods and to achieve geopolitical dominance over one another. Scientific innovations assisted this Renaissance Age of Exploration, such as improved ship design and navigational charts and instruments. During the Renaissance Era, the Roman Catholic Church faced numerous dissenters to its authority, who were reacting to corruption within the clergy. A series of popular heretical movements emerged, proposing to do away with the institutional church. There were also more moderate reformers, who criticized clergy corruption and sought reform within the Church itself. The most notable dissent with the Church, however, was the Protestant movement. The Protestant Reformation challenged the doctrine of papal infallibility and rejected the Catholic Church as a necessary intermediary between the faithful and God. However, disagreements among Protestants caused multiple sects to form. The Renaissance Period was a busy time of exploration and cultural exchange that resulted from vast improvements in trade and communication. The expansion of trade routes on land and sea allowed spices, precious gems, and fine silk to arrive from Asia. Why was Florence a major center of the Renaissance? There are several answers to this question: Extraordinary wealth accumulated in Florence during this period among a growing middle and upper class of merchants and bankers. With the accumulation of wealth often comes a desire to use it to enjoy the pleasures of life---and not an exclusive focus on the hereafter. Florence saw itself as the ideal city state, a place where the freedom of the individual was guaranteed, and where many citizens had the right to participate in the government (this must have been very different than living in the Duchy of Milan, for example, which was ruled by a succession of Dukes with absolute power). In 1400 Florence was engaged in a struggle with the Duke of Milan. The Florentine people feared the loss of liberty and respect for individuals that was the pride of their Republic. Luckily for Florence, the Duke of Milan caught the plague and died in 1402. Then, between 1408 and 1414 Florence was threatened once again, this time by the King of Naples, who also died before he could successfully conquer Florence. And in 1423 the Florentine people prepared for war against the son of the Duke of Milan who had threatened them earlier. Again, luckily for Florence, the Duke was defeated in 1425. The Florentine citizens interpreted these military "victories" as signs of God's favor and protection. They imagined themselves as the "New Rome"---in other words, as the heirs to the Ancient Roman Republic, prepared to sacrifice for the cause of freedom and liberty. The Florentine people were very proud of their form of government in the early 15th century (as we are of our democracy). A republic is, after all, a place that respects the opinions of individuals, and we know that individualism was a very important part of the Humanism that thrived in Florence in the fifteenth century **The Medici Family** also known as the House of Medici, is an Italian bourgeois family that ruled Florence and, later, Tuscany during most of the period from 1434 to 1737, first attained wealth and political power in Florence in the 13^th^ century through its success in commerce and banking. Beginning in 1434 with the rise to power of Cosimo de' Medici (or Cosimo The Elder), the family's support of the arts and humanities made Florence into the cradle of the Renaissance, a cultural flowering rivaled only by that of ancient Greece. The Medicis produced four popes (Leo X, Clement VII, Pius IV and Leo XI), and their genes have been mixed into many of Europe's royal families. The last Medici ruler died without a male heir in 1737, ending the family dynasty after almost three centuries. The de Medici during their rule of Florence in the fifteen century did much to influence the Renaissance and to enable the great artists, humanists, and writers, to produce their works that have been so influential down the centuries. The family brought stability and peace to the city of Florence. This was crucial in the cultural flourishing in the city in the fifteenth century. The de Medici largely peaceful rule did much to promote the Renaissance in the city. They also in their relations with the other city-states did much to bring peace to North Italy. Then the de Medici was very instrumental in the growing interest in Greek culture and history. - **Renaissance Humanism** - an interest in studying literature and art from antiquity - an interest in the eloquent use of Latin and philology - a belief in the importance and power of education to create useful citizens - the promotion of private and civic virtue - rejection of scholasticism - the encouragement of non-religious studies - an emphasis on the individual and their moral autonomy - a belief in the importance of observation, critical analysis, and creativity - a belief that poets, writers, and artists can lead humanity to a better way of Living - an interest in the question 'what does it mean to be human'? **1. Francesco Petrarch** He was born in Arezzo, Italy on 20 July 1304 CE to parents who were exiles from the city of Florence. He was an Italian scholar and poet during the Renaissance period, and one of the earliest Humanists. Petrarch studied law at the University of Montpellier (1316--1320) and the University of Bologna (1320--23); because his father was in the profession of law, he insisted that Petrarch and his brother study law also. Petrarch, however, was primarily interested in writing and Latin literature, and considered these seven years wasted. **2. Giovanni Boccaccio** He was born in Tuscany (either in Certaldo or Florence) in 1313 CE and spent his childhood in Florence. His father was Boccaccio di Chellino, a Tuscan merchant, but nothing is known about his mother, except that she may have been French (it used to be thought he had been born in Paris). Boccaccio was an Italian poet, writer, and scholar and correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. His most famous and influential work is the Decameron, completed by 1353, in which his ten characters present 100 tales of everyday life. The book covers all manner of secular themes and gives a vivid description of the Black Death, which had just hit Boccaccio\'s home region of Tuscany. - **Decameron** The Decameron (Ten Days) is a collection of tales Boccaccio compiled between 1348 and 1353 CE. In the work, ten young upper-class people are trying to escape the Black Death plague which has caused such chaos and disaster in their home city of Florence. Bocaccio gives a famous and lengthy description of the plague that had claimed the lives of his father, stepmother, and many friends. The description provides valuable contemporary information on the symptoms of the plague's victims and the general social consequences of a pandemic that devastated many European cities, towns, and villages. "\[The plague\] showed its first signs in men and women alike by means of swellings either in the groin or under the armpits, some of which grew to the size of an ordinary apple and others to the size of an egg (more or less), and the people called them gavoccioli (buboes). And from the two parts of the body already mentioned, in very little time, the said deadly gavoccioli began to spread indiscriminately over every part of the body; then, after this, the symptoms of the illness changed to black or livid spots appearing on the arms and thighs, and on every part of the body -- sometimes there were large ones and other times a number of little ones scattered all around. And just as the gavoccioli were originally, and still are, a very definite indication of impending death, in like manner these spots came to mean the same thing for whoever contracted them. Neither a doctor's advice nor the strength of medicine could do anything to cure this illness...So many corpses would arrive in front of a church every day and at every hour that the amount of holy ground for burials was certainly insufficient for the ancient custom of giving each body its individual place." The group of characters in the Decameron, made up of seven women and three men, travel to the safety of a secluded villa in the Tuscan town of Fiesole. Each member of the group is allowed to become king or queen for a day and dictate how the others will spend their leisure time that day. The king or queen also decides the theme of the ten, often comic stories each member must tell all the others. At the end of each day's tales, there is a climactic canzone or song. This happens over ten days and so the work contains 100 tales, which cover everything from commerce to adultery. Boccaccio is also presenting through these stories the way of life and attitudes of his characters, that is the well-to-do of Florence. Became the standard against which all subsequent prose literature in Italy and abroad was judged. There were critics, too, such as those who thought some of the stories too vulgar, and it was put on the Catholic Church's list of forbidden books in the mid-16^th^ century CE. Disappointing love affairs and deteriorating health made Giovanni depressive and his writing started showing signs of bitterness especially towards women. He attempted to burn and sell his work, letters, manuscripts and library. Petrarch convinced him not to burn his belonging and offered to purchase them from him. However, after his death, Boccaccio's literary belongings were presented to the monastery of Santo Spirito, in Florence. Although never married, Boccaccio was a father to three children. He passed away on December 21, 1375. - **Renaissance Art** Many works of Renaissance art depicted religious images, including subjects such as the Virgin Mary, or Madonna, and were encountered by contemporary audiences of the period in the context of religious rituals. Today, they are viewed as great works of art, but at the time they were seen and used mostly as devotional objects. Many Renaissance works were painted as altarpieces for incorporation into rituals associated with Catholic Mass and donated by patrons who sponsored the Mass itself. Renaissance artists came from all strata of society; they usually studied as apprentices before being admitted to a professional guild and working under the tutelage of an older master. Far from being starving bohemians, these artists worked on commission and were hired by patrons of the arts because they were steady and reliable. **1. Leonardo da Vinci.** (Italian: "Leonardo from Vinci") was born on April 15, 1452 at Anchiano, near Vinci, Republic of Florence \[Italy\] and died on May 2, 1519 at Cloux \[now Clos-Lucé\], France. He was an Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495--98) and Mona Lisa (c.1503--19) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of their time. - **The Last Supper** - **Mona Lisa** There has been much speculation and debate regarding the identity of the portrait's sitter. Scholars and historians have posited numerous interpretations, including that she is Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. For some reason however, the portrait was never delivered to its patron, and Leonardo kept it with him when he went to work for Francis I, the King of France. Another theory was that the model may have been Leonardo's mother, Caterina. A third suggestion was that the painting was, in fact, Leonardo's self-portrait, given the resemblance between the sitter's and the artist's facial features. Some scholars suggested that disguising himself as a woman was the artist's riddle. The sitter's identity has not been definitively proven. Numerous attempts in the 21^st^ century to settle the debate by seeking Lisa del Giocondo's remains to test her DNA and recreate an image of her face were inconclusive. - **David (1440-1460 Bronze)** Perhaps Donatello's landmark work--and one of the greatest sculptural works of the early Renaissance--was his bronze statue of David. This work signals the return of the nude sculpture in the round figure, and because it was the first such work like this in over a thousand years, it is one of the most important works in the history of western art. David was the first freestanding bronze cast statue of the Renaissance era as well as the first nude sculpture of a male since the classical sculptures of ancient Greece. - **Penitent Magdalene** A wooden sculpture of Mary Magdalene by the Italian Renaissance sculptor Donatello, created around 1453--1455. The sculpture was probably commissioned for the Baptistery of Florence. The piece was received with astonishment for its unprecedented Realism. It is now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence. **3. Michelangelo (1475- 1564).** Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born on March 6,1475, in Caprese, Republic of Florence \[Italy\] and died on died February 18,1564. He was an Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, and poet who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. - **David** It is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created between 1501 and 1504 by the Italian artist Michelangelo, when he was just 26 years old. David is a 5.17- meters (almost 17 feet, a shy short at 16 feet and 11.15 inches) statue of the Biblical figure and a favoured subject in the art of Florence. It is made of one single block of marble from the quarries in Carrara in Tuscany, one of the whitest in the world and weighs 5,660 kg or 12,478.12 lbs. He is made out of solid marble. The sling on his left shoulder and tree trunk behind his right leg were covered with gold leaf. Being outdoors in Piazza della Signoria in the elements for over 400 years washed the gold leaf away. The story of David and Goliath is a biblical one, found in Book 1 Samuel. The teenage David had to defeat the giant Goliath, he could not be defeated by strength since David was smaller. It took cunning and skill to defeat someone bigger than him, and he did so with the slingshot. Many statues before Michelangelo's that portray this story always show David AFTER he has defeated the giant, with the head by his feet. Michelangelo decided to go against the current and portray his David BEFORE the battle. You can see in his face the concentration of him thinking how he's going to do it, the rock hidden inside his right palm, the slingshot seemingly at rest on his shoulder and him waiting for the right moment pretending to be at ease. He could only defeat the giant if he caught him by surprise -- and he did! - **Pieta**. **4. Raphael**. Raffaello Sanzio or Raffaello Santi was born on April 6,1483 in Urbino, Duchy of Urbino \[Italy\] and died on April 6, 1520 in Rome, Papal States \[Italy\]. He was a master painter and architect of the Italian High Renaissance. Raphael is best known for his Madonnas and for his large figure compositions in the Vatican. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Most famous for his unique style in the paintings of the Madonna, particularly for the Sistine Madonna for the Palace of the Vatican. He did not paint the ceiling with Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, but he was commissioned to do tapestries for the Chapel. - **Sistine Madonna** Sistine Madonna is the Virgin Mary appearing with an infant Jesus, where Madonna and the colors she bears are symbols of virtue, virginity, innocence and purity of spirit.